I Don't Understand

I'm a bit of a political junkie. I surf the net for an hour or two every day and I watch way too much talking-head cable TV. For the last couple of days I've been baffled by the lack of coverage of torture and the authorization of torture at the highest levels of the US government. The McClatchy newspaper group, formerly the Knight-Ridder group, and the only major newspaper group to seriously question the Iraq War before it started, has just published a multi-part series on detainee abuse and torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere. In another story, Major General Antonio Tagabu, who led the investigation of torture at Abu Ghraib, wrote for the Physicians for Human Rights that:

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

The New Republic issued a travel advisory for Bush Administration officials, but most of the usual suspects of the left-wing blogosphere haven't had a lot to say. I haven't heard a peep out of the talking heads, not even my favorite Bush-basher, Keith Olbermann.

What have they been talking about instead? How the Democrats caved on FISA legislation, how Obama has flip-flopped on campaign financing, the frog walk of a couple of Bear Stearns executives, the re-making of Michelle Obama's image, and don't forget the bodiless feet washing up on British Columbia beaches.

Torture isn't the only story that is getting short shrift. How about George Soros saying before a congressional committee investigating oil prices that the largest holder of heating oil in the Northeast is Morgan Stanley!!!??? For those of you who might ask, "Who is Morgan Stanley, and why should I care?", MS is not an oil company or refiner. It is one of the biggest investment banks on Wall Street. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but wouldn't that news make the ordinary person think that there might be some manipulation of oil prices going on?


I think that the Main Stream Media (MSM) is a good thing in that it acts as a filter for the information overload that can easily overwhelm a casual observer of the news. The MSM should give us all a common basis for what's news and what isn't, but when major stories like these get minimal attention at best, something's wrong.


Ps. Farley seems to recovering very nicely. Right now, he's sleeping peacefully at my feet without his Elizabethan collar on, and doesn't seem to be holding a grudge.